I absolutely agree with everything you said. I assumed that the movie would be told in present, and I'm holding out hope that it will be in the finished film. Shoving The Hobbit into a superfluous faming device does nothing to help the story. All it does it add extra time to the movie that could be used for other purposes, or cut for pacing reasons. I'm really hoping that by the time they come to editing that this ends up on the cutting room floor.